


The Seasons of the Witch

by inamac



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Light BDSM, Multi, Threesome - F/F/M, Veela
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 12:58:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/inamac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Hermione's imprisonment in Malfoy Manor has strange results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seasons of the Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 Samhain-Smut fest to the prompt: Hermione accidentally invokes a marriage ritual on Samhain. I have twisted the prompt a little, and there is rather less BDSM than the prompter may have expected. This is a slightly different take on Lucius from my usual one. My apologies.

**The Seasons of the Witch**

**Ostara 1998**

"I do not like to see blood."

Rodolphus Lestrange's voice was almost gentle as his wand traced along the sanguine signature that his wife had left on her arm, and erased all sign of it. The words washed over her, no more regarded than the spell. Her eyes continued to stare at nothing. At the canopy of the bed. At the spiderweb in the corner, and the fly trapped there, as she was trapped. Wrapped in silk and no chance of escape short of death.

And this man, this spider, leaned over her and touched his lips to hers, drinking her as the spider would drink the fly.

She opened her mouth. She had no choice. His perfume – no, his scent – was overwhelming. She would do anything for him, submitting to his touch, to his kiss, to his Master.

"Yesssss." It was an avian hiss. From his shoulders black wings sprang, feathers sharp-edged against the light, furled to enfold her. She had known – of course she had, she was Hermione Granger, she knew _everything_ – that there were dark veela; men, usually, whose touch could arouse even the most powerful witch, and whose lightest word could command obedience even in their worst enemy.

And she knew that the slightest response would bind her to him as firmly as if they had both stood before the altar and pledged themselves in marriage.

His hand – claw – travelled down her body, and reluctant arousal followed it, nipples blushing erect, vagina pulsing wetness around his crooked fingers. 

She wondered, as he plundered her traitorously responding body, whether he had used these powers on his wife. Had Bellatrix once been as cold and controlled as her blonde sister? As sensible and normal as Mrs Tonks?

Her orgasm took her by storm. His wings mantled around her, and then rose, beating with her heart, with his orgasm; for an instant before they were caught, noosed in a loop of the same silk rope that bound her to the bed, and he was pulled backwards, screaming, clawing, more bird than man, into the hard embrace of his brother-in-law.

He tried to transform back to human, but the rope secured his wings, held him in the shape which made him a prisoner. Lucius Malfoy leaned over his captive, white hair against black feathers, and gently placed the silver blade of a long knife against the man's throat. 

"A pity," he said, lips twisted in an ironic smile, "that you do not like to see blood."

His eyes met Hermione's, asking a question.

She could not remember, later, whether she nodded or shook her head. It probably did not matter. 

Malfoy grinned and seized a handful of the captive feathers. "I have always wondered," he said, reflectively, "What would happen to a Veela if you clipped its wings." With that he brought the knife down and sliced off the long primaries, opening his hand to drop the mangled feathers on the floor.

Rodolphus screamed, rearing back against Lucius, his naked torso a blade of stark angles, his ribs curved like Lucius' knife, corpse-white against the broken black feathers and the blacker fabric of Lucius' robe. The long thin Veela penis, still coated with her juices and his, spurted in reaction to the pain, soiling the bed and the fallen feathers further. Lucius grimaced in disgust and threw the maimed creature aside. It hit the wall and fell, unmoving.

It had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Hermione was still in the throes of the induced Veela lust. She had barely noticed the absence of her ravisher. When Lucius leaned over her to sever the binding ropes with the knife, her first reaction was to reach up with her released arm and pull him down for a lascivious kiss.

He reciprocated, though only as much as she demanded, returning the kiss and caressing her to calmness. When she was breathing evenly again, and the Veela-madness had vanished from her eyes, he completed the task of releasing her before moving back to watch while she recovered from the events of the last hours since she and her companions had been brought to his house.

She watched him warily, uncertain of his reasons for releasing her. When it became clear that he did not intend to touch her again she pushed herself up onto the pillows and began to make some attempt to straighten the ruin that Rodolphus and his wife had made of her clothes and her flesh.

"There is water in the carafe," Lucius said. "It is quite safe to drink."

Gratefully she reached over to the bedside table and poured herself a glassful. Her hand shook, and the glass clinked, but the drink helped revive her strength and her wits.

"Why," she swallowed, and glanced at Rodolphus' inert body. "Why would you do that?"

He looked at her with an unreadable expression. Pity? Hate?

"I learned things in Azkaban," he said. "Terrible things. Whoever wins this War the Wizarding World will change. I would sooner see your kind, tainted blood or no, the victors than his."

"Then let me go free," she urged. "Let me and my friends go."

His smile was brittle. "The Dark Lord broke my wand," he said. "I have no power in my own house. If that animal had not been distracted I could not have bested him with only my knife. I cannot even release you from this Bond, let alone from my cellars. I will send you back there. Perhaps your friends will find an escape for you before he wakes or my sister in law decides to complete her game. And after the war is over, if we live, then we will see. And now," he turned away, bending to pick up Rodolphus' wand from where it had fallen in the fight. "I will send you back to my cellars, and _Obliviate_ this scum."

o0o

**Beltane 1999**

 _After the war is over_ , Malfoy had said. The war had been over for more than a year and in that time Hermione had been too busy to think much about that dreadful night at Malfoy Manor, even had she wished to. Too busy restoring her parents memories, testifying before the newly elected Wizengamot (there had been a minor sensation when she had spoken in Lucius Malfoy's defence, but there were enough survivors of the Ministry's anti-Muggle measures now sitting in judgement to understand what it was to be deprived of a wand in time of war and to spare him imprisonment in Azkaban), and raising funds to restore Hogwarts. She had helped with some of the restoration work, but had not returned there, having received offers from all three of the Universities with Wizarding Colleges. The cleverest witch of her age was much sought after, and she had eventually accepted a place at John Dee College, Durham as being further from Hogwarts than Edinburgh, and from the Ministry than the LSE.

She had thrown herself into her studies, and into new friendships and hobbies with enthusiasm.

It helped her to forget.

Until, that is, the owl arrived in her study on the anniversary of the last battle and dropped a note and a small parcel on top of her latest paper.

The parchment was sealed with the Malfoy crest. The note was short, and the penmanship shaky.

_If you wish to be released from the Bond the Ritual must take place on Samhain. I will be here when you are ready._

The parcel contained a book. Small enough to hold in the palm of her hand, and so old that the text had been printed with woodblock rather than type. The once red leather cover was worn to a pale pink on spine and edges, and the gilt letters of the title were almost unreadable. _Marriage Contracts, Bonds and Rituals_. The bookplate on the flyleaf showed that it came from the Malfoy library.

She turned it in her hands, wondering what significance it had. The Bond, he had written. And the only one she could think of (though the thought pained her) was the unwholesome Veela 'marriage' that Bellatrix and her husband had tried to force on her while she had been imprisoned at Malfoy Manor. But both Lestranges had died at Hogwarts. Any Bond would have died with them.

There was a ribbon marker in the book. She opened it at the page which was headed 'Of Veela Magic'.

What she read there sent her, unwilling, back to that dreadful night.

_The Veela Bond is consummated by a willing kiss, from victim to Veela. Or to the Veela's Mate or Master. ___

__She had not kissed Rodolphus. She had certainly not kissed his mate, Bellatrix. But she remembered, in all-too vivid detail, the moment when Lucius Malfoy had taken and mastered the black veela by force. And the willing kiss that she had given him._ _

__Her fingers strayed from the text to her lips, remembering that moment and re-examining her emotions. There had been relief, and a sense of obligation to the man who had saved her; she had feared Lucius Malfoy, but then she had seen how broken he was, by both Azkaban and his Master and he had merited her pity. She wondered now how much that unintended veela bond had governed her actions, then and subsequently. Well, it seemed that he was as unwilling as she. The book, and his offer to be ready when she wished to be released from the bond had come late, but it least it had come now._ _

__She replaced the bookmark, closed the book, put it into her case and made her way down to the University library. It was not as comprehensive as the library at Hogwarts, or even, on the evidence of this gift, as the one at Malfoy Manor, but it would have to suffice. She could not be alone is needing to break an accidental marriage bond, though she might be the only Muggle witch to find herself unwillingly wed to a pureblood enemy._ _

__She had eight months to Samhain. It would have to be enough._ _

____

o0o

**Samhain 2000**

 _When you are ready_ , his note had said. The book had indicated that a Veela Bond could be a strong one, requiring the partners to be together constantly, and to consummate the relationship frequently, and she had half expected to be visited by some sort of magical sexual imperative, but if she had it was indistinguishable from her monthly cramps, and alleviated with a few drops of the appropriate potion. In fact she had given little thought to her inconvenient 'marriage' since she was by no means ready to enter into a consensual one. 

She was going out (and occasionally and energetically 'staying in') with a Belgian student studying politics who thought that her own magic studies were historical and literary rather than practical, but neither of them expected the relationship to outlast their finals. Ron, having finally come to terms with her decision to continue her studies, was travelling around Europe. Camping. According to his mother he was trying to 'find himself'; according to his infrequent owls to Hermione he was more interested in 'losing Mum'. He appeared to be succeeding, Hermione was getting used to receiving owls (and gannets and pigeons) from the most obscure locations. Harry made the occasional Floo call, when his duties as trainee Auror allowed. She had few other correspondents from the wizarding world, so it came as a surprise when an owl arrived on her desk, bearing a note with a London return address on the folded parchment, two days before Halloween.

The text of the letter, in an elegant feminine hand, made her own hand shake.

_Honoured Hermione,_

_Forgive the intrusion of this letter. I know that our husband wished to give you time to consider the consequences of the Bond of which you are both unwilling victims, but as Samhain approaches there are stresses on him that make me fear for all our futures._

_If you can find it in you to forgive, I beg that you come to us this Samhain to help perform the necessary rituals. My owl will bring your reply. As you see, we are staying at our London house, so you need not be troubled by memories of the Manor._

_Yours, in desperation,  
Your co-wife, Narcissa Malfoy_

Crookshanks jumped up onto her lap and butted his blunt head into her hand as she dropped the letter on her desk. She needed his comforting presence to anchor her thoughts. The formality of the greeting (she did not usually use her Order of Merlin status in correspondence), and the emphasis on the relationship ( _our husband, your co-wife_ ) brought home to her the reality of her position. Married by magic. She had been unaffected for two years, but apparently he had not been. Desperation, Narcissa had written, and she wondered what the separation had done to Lucius, already broken and stripped, first by Voldemort and then by the Wizengamot, of his power.

Marriage to a veela had sent Bellatrix mad. Was Narcissa seeing that same corruption taking her husband as it had claimed her sister? Hermione shivered. The witch was right, it was time to break the spell. She upskittled Crookshanks and went to find the book Lucius had sent her, and her notes. She did not have much time to get packed if she was to be in London two days hence.

o0o

The house was in a Queen Anne terrace overlooking Hyde Park. Unlike Grimauld Place, the Black's London house, this was not concealed from Muggles by magic, but relied on London's confusing geography, an iron fence across the end of the square in which it stood, and an imposing doorcase to discourage inquisitive visitors.

A thin drizzle had started falling as she had walked from the underground station and she was grateful for the protection of the baroque canopy as she pulled the bellpull and waited for the house elf to answer.

The door was opened by her hostess.

Narcissa's expression changed from annoyance to relief when she realised who was standing on her doorstep.

"Miss Granger! Thank God. I never expected..." she broke off, visibly pulling herself together and recalling her manners. "Please, come in." She reached out a hand, perhaps intending to drag Hermione through the doorway in her anxiety. Hermione, burdened with case, broomstick and umbrella, eluded it and stepped into the hallway.

The entrance hall was surprisingly bright and airy, in sharp contrast to Grimauld Place. Narcissa indicated that she should drop her things on the bench beneath one of the windows that looked out onto the street. In the past, Hermione assumed, a house elf would have dealt with such things, but it seemed that the Malfoys no longer had their magical servants. She could not be sorry for that.

Her hostess led the way under the curve of the elegant staircase and into a room which had probably once been the library, though the shelves were, to Hermione's eyes, shockingly denuded of books. There were comfortable, shabby easy chairs beside the fire, and a round table with drawers beneath the top which must have been intended as an estate table, but, judging by the four mis-matched chairs which were drawn up around it, was now used as a dining table. The fire in the carved marble fireplace was stoked high. It seemed that, with their magic restricted, and their servants gone, the Malfoys were making the best they could of the resources left to them and had confined themselves to the use of this single room.

She had no opportunity to see more, for the chair by the fire was pushed back and the master of the house rose to greet her.

For a moment she thought she was facing a ghost.

Lucius Malfoy had always been pale, but with a strength and vitality that had made him very much a force to be reckoned with. Now all that was leached away and, although he moved confidently enough to greet her she had the impression, as she took his outstretched hand, that her fingers might pass right through his.

"We should not have intruded upon you," he said. "But it was good of you to come."

"I—," she hesitated. "I hadn't realised. The note you sent with the book didn't seem urgent..."

He smiled, without humour. "It was not," he said, "Then. But I have been under some stress, having lost one spouse in the war and been deprived of the company of another. Narcissa is a rock, but one I have too much relied on."

Hermione frowned. "I would have come sooner. After the war. And you haven't lost me."

"He means Severus," said Narcissa, moving to stand next to her husband and setting a reassuring hand on his arm. His own hand closed over hers, and he smiled, this time with warmth.

"You were married... to _Snape_!" The shock made her shrill.

"Mudlood," Lucius said, without any force, "you really do not understand our culture, do you? For ritual purposes a wizard may take as many spouses as he or she requires to achieve their ends. Narcissa, Severus and I had been in a bond-marriage for years. Of course, our aims were safety and pleasure. I suspect that Bellatrix and her husband had other purposes in attempting to draw you into their marriage. They enjoyed power and pain. They might have enjoyed the result of their scheming too, had they survived to see it. Severus' death hit us both hard. Though you did not know it, my bond with you helped me to cope with that, a new-forged bond replacing an old one."

"I see," Hermione said. "And I came here to do whatever ritual is needed to break the Bond. Is that what you want?"

"What I want is of little consequence," he replied. "If you agree, the ritual will determine what happens now. Did you read the book?"

She nodded. "And I did some research. Forced and coerced Bonds are easily broken."

Out in the hall a clock chimed the hour. Narcissa started. "It is late," she said. "I had intended to offer you a supper before we begin."

"Thank you," said Hermione. "But the ritual requires a fast and I would prefer that we get it over as soon as possible. It must be done tonight. I brought the necessary equipment with me. It's in my bag in the hall. I'll fetch it."

Lucius nodded. "We have a room prepared," he said. "We will show you."

o0o

The room was, naturally, a bedroom. It had been prepared with tripods at each of the cardinal points (Hermione checked with her own compass), with salt and grain and honey and wine. Narcissa pulled open the curtains, allowing the pale evening light to filter through the old, rippled glass. The sound of London traffic came from the distance, never silent, but muffled by trees and buildings. Somewhere, in the park, a peacock screamed.

Lucius lit the candles, using a taper rather than his wand. Hermione realised that she did not even know whether he had replaced the wand lost in the War, or whether the Wizengamot had permitted it. But ritual magic did not require wands. If one knew what one was doing. And the Malfoys had clearly been well prepared for this ritual.

After a year at University Hermione was beginning to get used to working in concert with other wizards to accomplish the more complex spells, the ones that kept the Wizarding World operating; construction spells, concealment charms, wards and protections for public spaces, veracity charms for private conferences, but she had only a theoretical grasp of the most intimate of joint Workings that comprised sex magic.

Fortunately her companions were very experienced.

When everything was prepared there was one more step to take before the ritual began. Hermione was surprised when Narcissa began to disrobe. She had expected the older witch to leave, since this was a bond between herself and Lucius. Narcissa smiled when Hermione stammered out her quesiton.

"A bond to my husband is a bond to me," she said, tossing her gown over a chair. "Our marriage vows made us one flesh. If you are to break your bond with Lucius, you must also break your bond with me."

"I thought..."

"Shush. This is no place for thought. Disrobe and _feel_."

When they all three stood, naked, before the scented flames she found herself surprisingly relaxed.

"You understand," said Narcissa, "that a marriage bond must be consummated before it can be annulled?"

Hermione nodded, then realised that it had not been a solicitous comment but a part of the ritual. "I understand," she said.

"Do you consent?" That was Lucius.

"Yes." Her voice trembled only a little.

"I consent," said Narcissa, formally, and linked her hand with Hermione's. "Husband ours, do you consent?"

He swallowed. She had not expected him to be nervous, and then realised that, for a wizard stripped of his wand to attempt a major ritual took extraordinary courage. Or desperation. 

"I consent," he said, at last.

Narcissa moved forward and kissed him full on the lips. Then she dropped to the bed and lay down on the pillows. Hermione raised her own suddenly dry lips and waited, as if in a trance, to follow Narcissa.

His lips covered on hers – and she was suddenly thrown back to the memory of the kiss that had sealed this bond.

She could not help but respond. His hands rose to her shoulders for an instant, pressing her back onto the bed. And then he released her.

"That is sufficient," he said. "Remember, a marriage is a partnership."

Confused, she met his eyes. They were bright, almost feverish in the filtered moonlight.

"A kiss is not consummation. Merely affirmation. We have much to do to satisfy the magic. Do not squander your lust too soon."

Narcissa put a hand on her wrist and pulled her down and across the bed to lie beside her. She was smiling. "Don't be greedy," she said, before her own mouth fastened on Hermione's throat, sucking and nibbling just at the point which seemed to connect directly to her groin.

By the time she could think coherently again Lucius had joined them on the bed. He had slid in behind his wife and he must have been doing something to Narcissa, for the woman's breath on her throat came in short bursts, and her nipples were peaking with arousal.

One of the reasons that Hermione had tried not to think about her bond with Lucius Malfoy was that she had assumed that all Death Eaters used sex to dominate and humiliate their partners. She should have realised, from Narcissa's actions, that this was not true, but even so she was surprised to find that both Malfoys were considerate lovers. She was not sure what was ritual and what was desire. They were not gentle – unless she wished it – but neither were they dominant (and she wondered, guiltily, if Lucius could be that too, if she desired it).

Narcissa was a revelation.

_Our husband_ , she had written, and _co-wife_ , and Hermione, used to the politeness's of Muggle student relationships had not expected that prim, proper Narcissa Malfoy would be not only willing, but eager to share her husband and herself with sensuous abandon.

Her first orgasm came on Narcissa's fingers. Her second, a sudden unexpected rush of passionate desire, watching Lucius's face as he coupled with Narcissa. She was grateful to have seen that, for her eyes were closed with ecstasy, all thought, all feeling focussed on the reality of him inside her when he finally completed the consummation of their bond.

"And now," Narcissa was saying when hearing returned, "we can break your bond."

o0o

**Samhain – Nineteen Years Later**

Hermione woke with the peculiar little mental _bounce_ that is characteristic of having woken suddenly from a broken dream. Or nightmare.

She recognised it, and its cause, from too much familiarity. Keeping her eyes still shut she groped across the bed and her fingers encountered the solid naked back of her husband.

"Bad dream?" he asked, sleepily.

"Mmmm." She cuddled closer, for warmth and comfort. The Autumn nights were beginning to be chill.

"No surprise," he said, rolling over to reciprocate. "Tonight is Samhain. The anniversary of your Veela marriage contract."

She shivered. It wasn't something that she wanted to think about. The memory of that horrifying night during the war when she had been forced into a magical contract she had neither sought nor wanted had long faded, but the ritual that she had undertaken to break it, nineteen years ago, was still something that frightened her. Her husband knew her thought and ran his hand along her arm, soothing away the itching tenseness of the memory.

"Is it selfish of me to think that you made the right choice?" he asked. 

He was answered by a voice from the other side of the room. "Of course it is, Lucius. But you always were selfish." Narcissa set down the tea tray and crossed the bedroom to open the curtains. The clip clop of a passing police horse sounded up from the street.

"If Hermione had decided to break the bond we would be outcast paupers by now."

Hermione blushed. "I don't think..." she began.

"On the contrary, you think far too much, Doctor Granger. Now, lets have breakfast and then we can discuss how we are going to re-consummate our bond tonight." Narcissa smiled. "I have a few toys that I think you both might appreciate."

The End.


End file.
